Portland

Charlie’s alarm went off at 8:00 am. He showered, dressed and headed to the lobby for breakfast. The night before Corman had texted him before going to bed: “Meet you in the lobby at 8:15.”

Charlie texted back, “Are you serious?”

Corman’s response, “Yeah.”

I hopped in the shower when Charlie was done, and met him in the lobby around 8:45. He was sitting alone, watching TV. “I knew Ben wasn’t serious about 8:15,” he said. I laughed.

A minute later, Corman came down the hall. “Sorry dude, I woke up and thought, fuck this, and laid back down for a few more minutes.” We ate breakfast, and then packed the PA into the van. After that it was time to hit the road for the day. The first stop was the UPS store, which will be a regular occurrence for me on the tour. For every city we premiere in, there are boxes and boxes of swag bags and t-shirts that need to get to the theater.  I’m still shocked that we give it all away for only the $10 ticket price. It really is a great gesture to the fans. Thankfully, we weren’t selling the extra merchandise for the early dates, so there was a lot less to deal with.

Once we got the swag, we dropped them off at the theater, went back to the hotel, ate lunch, and returned to the theater to start prepping for the big show. While Corman and Charlie set up the PA, Jeff filled me in on my duties for the night.

Jeff is a hard guy to describe. At first glance, he’s not physically intimidating in the standard ways, but there’s something about him that let’s people know it’s not a good idea to fuck with him. I think Corman put it best when the theater manager was asking who Jeff was, “Just find the angry looking guy who looks like he wants to kill someone with his barehands.” Seconds later, I saw her talking to Jeff, so that description must be accurate. Yet, despite his reputation, Jeff is an easy boss to work for. He’s extremely organized at any moment. He has a huge binder with colored tabs containing almost every bit of information related to the tour, and believe me, there is a fucking ton of information to know — phone numbers, addresses, people, flights, etc. He’ll get you what you need to know in a minute or two. Jeff is also responsible for orchestrating this whole mess, getting people where they need to be, doing what they need to be doing, when they need to be doing it.  All he asks of us, which trickles down through Rudius from the top, is for results. He tells you what needs to be done, you find a way to do it, and Jeff doesn’t have to beat you. There’s no micro-managing, no yelling or screaming, no bullshit, just business.

My duties for the first showing consisted of manning the wristband booth to check in everyone that bought tickets. After that, I would hand out the swag bags and t-shirts. The Portland screening was an anomaly among the tour dates. The showing was actually split up into 4 smaller 50-person theaters, and after the movie was done we packed everyone into one theater for the Q&A. It was a great place for a test run, but sucked because not everyone who wanted to see it, could fit in.

The theater staff set me up with a table right inside the door, and Jeff handed me a list and a fist full of wrist bands. The first people started showing up over an hour before the event. The one thing the venue did have going for it was the bar inside. We were able to direct people over there for drinks while they waited to be seated. The crowd was an interesting cross-section of the population, but about what I expected. There were fratty type guys, younger guys who worshiped Tucker, hot chicks, average chicks, guys who clearly came from the messageboard (pale-skin, acne, and/or severe obesity).

My favorite moment during the ticket process was when two young guys, probably 18 or 19 years old, came to ask if there were any tickets for them, and three other friends. I said, “you want tickets huh?” And slowly looked through the list, even though I knew we still had a few extras available. “Hmmmm,” I kept building the suspense, “I don’t know, this doesn’t look good…. oh wait, yup, looks like you’re in luck.” I tore off five wristbands, and handed them over. “Free, compliments of Tucker Max.” I said as the one kid took them. He took a few steps back to his waiting friend and exclaimed “I told you!” And the two embraced in a spontaneous full body hug before they realized it was a little gay and awkward. It’s reactions like that, that make busting my ass all hours of the day for the tour worth it, and I’m sure the same reactions have inspired Tucker to take this thing from stories on the internet to (soon to be) blockbuster movie and beyond.

When the crowd finally dispersed into the theaters, I grabbed a pint of beer and chugged it down. Then I headed over to my computer bag, and poured in one of the tall boys I’d brought for stress relief into the empty glass. I handed one to Corman, and he accepted with a smile. It was funny because later on one of the waitresses said to me “oh, you have a pale ale? I thought we had run out of that.”

Corman and I got the swag bags, posters, and t-shirts set up to hand out as efficiently as possible. It was after this show that someone (smarter than me) decided it would be much easier to lay out the swag bags and posters on the seats before the movie started. As I was setting up, a Chinese girl came out and sat in the chair beside the swag table. She was talking on the phone “It is disgusting, and vulgar, and there’s nudity, and it’s just gross.” She didn’t seem pleased at all AND it was like 15 minutes into the movie. The weird part is that I remembered her picking up the tickets under her name. What the fuck did she expect?

There was also some greasy looking foreign dude in a green shirt hitting on anything with a vagina. I watched him work his way from female to female, striking out like a Ray Charles playing baseball. I’d be surprised if he even watched half the movie, because he was too busy getting shot down in the bar. And every time I saw him, he was a little bit drunker than the time before. One of the waitresses, and later Bill Dawes female friend, were telling me that he was using lines like “I know what you want. You want me. You want a badboy, you just don’t want to admit it to yourself.” Who the hell says shit like that? I have a feeling that he was citing Pick-up Artists lines. God, I hate the fucking pua community. If I could sum up those assholes in one image, it would be the image of that greasy dumbass walking out into the Portland rain, after failing with every girl in the place, alone.

Now, you might think that Mr. pua would be the biggest douchebag at the screening, but you would be wrong. After dishing out all the t-shirts and swag bags, Jeff comes over to talk to Corman and I. He was commenting on the sound, and some dude that had been hovering around all night starts tossing sound advice over Jeff’s shoulder. Jeff turns around, and says “keep telling me how to do my job, and I’ll punch you in the face,” and then turned back and continued talking to us. Douchebag mumbled some bullshit, then tried several times to patch things up with Jeff, but Jeff was having none of it.

When Jeff went back into the theaters to check on the Q&A, douchebag asked us what his problem was. “He doesn’t like you, man. Just deal with it. Besides he’s an mma fighter, and you don’t want to fuck with him.”

Douchebag, puffed out his chest, “yeah, well I run the sound boards for every night club in Portland. I’m also an mma dummy for all those guys training in the city. I deal with them everyday.”

“An mma dummy? They don’t even have that.”

“Yeah, dude, they do. They practice on me and shit to get better.”

“Well why don’t you and Jeff head out into the parking lot, and you can both demonstrate your respective skills.” I said. The douchebag scoffed just as Jeff came back over. Jeff continued with his business doing his best to ignore douchebag, but like any true douchebag, the guy needed to be acknowledged.

“Hey, what are you all drinking?” He said. “I’ll buy you guys some beer.” Jeff simply walked away. One of Tucker’s buddies was hanging out at the table too. He told the douchebag to just buy us whatever. So the guy came back with glasses for all of us, and himself. He tried to force one on Jeff, but I’m pretty sure once you’re on Jeff’s bad side, that’s a permanent position. Jeff walked away again and douchebag said “Fuck, what kind of an idiot turns down free beer” and walked off with two pints in hand. Would that be the last we hear from douchebag? Of course not, he’s a douchebag.

For an inside joke, Tucker and Nils had me go fetch a roll of quarters. I had a twenty minute time limit. As Tucker handed me the $10 dollar bill, the waitress whispered in my ear “go to Powell’s across the street.” I thought, awesome, Powell’s is one of the biggest book stores in North America, spanning the length of an entire city block, this will be a cool chance to check it out.  I ran through the spitting rain, and inside the mammoth book store. It was filled with hipsters, old people, lonely looking people, and more hipsters. The lineup for the tills at the front is at least a dozen people deep and there are only two cashiers. So I sneak up to the first cashier between customers and ask the 40ish man wearing Weezer glasses  if I can trade for a roll of quarters.

“I might have one.”

“Can you check please?”

“I will look, but you have to wait in line.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes,” he said, imparting years of sexual frustration and failure upon me, “Next please.”

I looked at the line, thought about the crew back at the theater looking at their watches, and budded in front of everyone except an old lady and a dude because they were inside a roped off area that I couldn’t get around. The dude went first, and sure enough, he dumped a basket of thirty books onto the counter of the loser I spoke to first. Now my blood pressure is rising. I hate lines with a passion. I hate them even more when I’m in a rush, which is quite often. My fists are clenched and an endless stream of curse words and vile hatred is running through my head. The old lady went to the second cashier, who looked like the female equivalent of the other guy, except more miserable. They started chatting about the one book she’s buying, and the movie based on it AND THE LINE UP WAS GETTING LONGER. Now I was losing my mind, as I visualized doing a flying knee over the counter into that hag cashier’s turkey neck. Five minutes later, the old grandma shuffles off with her book, and I jumped up to the counter. “Hi, I was talking to the other cashier, he said you might have  a roll of quarters.”

She sighed, and slowly, like there wasn’t a massive lineup behind me, opened the register. “No, I don’t.”

“Okay, well could you check his till?” I said, pointing to her coworker.

“No.”

“Really? But he made me wait in line. And I’m in a rush. You honestly can’t just ask him to look?”

She wrinkled her stupid fucking wrinkly face even more, and took as much pleasure as someone who has sucked so thoroughly and consistently at life possibly could at being a cunt and said “No. You can try in the orange room.”

“This is bullshit.” I said without raising my voice. “You’re a shitty person.”

I ran among the endless bookshelves. The store was divided into colored rooms, each one the size of a typical bookstore. I ran past green rooms, and pink rooms, and purple rooms, until I finally saw orange. Again, there were two cashiers and a huge line up. Don’t hipsters have anything better to do than wait in line?, I thought. I wasn’t going to fuck around any more, I walked right up to the young cashier, hoping life hadn’t sucked his spirit dry yet, and asked him for a roll. He opened the register, handed one over and I was off and running. That simple, like it should have been. I entered back into rain, thinking fuck Powell’s books. The traditional publishing industry is already on thin legs – pretentious, terrible customer service ain’t helping nothing. I handed Tucker the roll of quarters some time around the ten minute mark. Not good, not bad either. At least the joke they used them for later on, went off without a hitch.

The Q&A lasted about 25 minutes. When it finished, everybody spilled out into the theater’s bar. Not many people stuck around because the bar wasn’t exactly tailored to mingling or heavy drinking. Tucker signed paraphernalia, and during the process met a self-proclaimed “female Tucker Max.” How original.

Another decent girl came up and asked me for a free t-shirt. “Size large?” I said, with a straight face.

“Excuse me,” she slurred, opening her jacket and pulling her shirt at the back so it was as tight as possible around her waist, “does this look like a size large?”

“Oh my mistake, darling. You are clearly a size small.”

She giggled, as I handed her the shirt. “So are you from California?”

“Actually no, believe it or not, I’m Canadian.”

“That’s hot.” She said, dead serious.

“Why thank you.”

“My mom is like totally all about Canada.”

I did a mental double-take, and my brain was offering nothing for a response. I looked over at Corman who was bent under the table trying to hide his laughter. It reminded me of the Seinfeld “You mean, the panties your mother laid out for you?” episode. I had more questions than I had answers so I turned away from the girl and ignored her.

Another moderator from Tucker’s messageboard, Patrick, came to the screening too. We were all relieved to find out he’s a normal guy and not some basement dwelling psychopath, which is a common possibility when you’re dealing with people you only know through the internet. We asked him about his latest travel plans, since he’s the type of guy to backpack into a war zone to sleep in a bombed out brothel.

When the singing had ended, our whole crew had an impromptu meeting in the bar to discuss how the showing went, what we could improve on and what went really well. Tucker, Nils and Dawes specifically talked about what worked during the Q&A. On surface level they might seem like a bunch of funny guys winging it through the Q&A, but make no mistake, these guys are professionals and take their jobs seriously.

Once everyone had said their piece, we finished packing up the van, and headed out to a local pub that the female Tucker Max and her friends recommended. It was a three block walk from the theater. Dawes went elsewhere with some female friends. Our tour manager elected to wait for us in one of the vans and work. He’s toured with Motley Crue, this guy has already experienced his fair share of partying.

We get into the bar, and order up some drinks. Tucker and his female doppelganger are sitting up against the bar. She has her legs up on another stool. Charlie, Ben, Patrick and I are drinking beer and bullshitting, when I turned to my left and there is douchebag and two friends sitting at the bar. They fucking followed us here? Dudes followed us here?

Not only did douchebag come along, he brought two friends. One guys seems like a perfectly normal guy. He’s sitting at the bar talking to Corman. The other guy is a twitchy, hyper-active weirdo who we only referred to as Gollum. They had obviously had a lot to drink. I debated at length with Charlie and Ben as to whether Gollum was on drugs or not, but they seemed adamant that he was just fucked in the head, and not tripping out on speed or coke or something. At one point Charlie and Ben are talking to Gollum, and Gollum paused and said “Fuck, my shoulder hurts.” A second later, while standing still, he wipes out and is sprawled out on the ground. Let me reiterate that, he wasn’t in motion, he said his shoulder hurt, and these two variables led to him spread eagle on the dirty bar floor. I’m convinced this guy was a cartoon character come to life.

After I came back from taking a leak, Gollum had picked himself up. He was back to the status quo, giving us his typical serial killer look. Meanwhile, douchebag was still trying to get Jeff to like him and play pool. Finally Jeff had enough and agreed to a bet. Keep in mind, douchebag offered these terms. If douchebag wins, he can run the soundboard next time Jeff is in Portland for an event (likely never). If Jeff wins, he gets to choke douchebag out. And, to make things interesting, Jeff will play single handed.

In no time Jeff won the game. Everybody gathered around, cell phone cameras open and recording, and Jeff sunk a choke into douchebag. He was down and out in seconds, lying on the ground with his eyes rolled back. His friends are freaking out. Jeff stood over him, looked down, and stomped right on his chest. Douchebag sucked in a huge gasp of air, and regained consciousness immediately. As Jeff was walking away Gollum asks “Why did you stomp on him?” Without looking back he said “To restart his heart.”

We all sat back down to finish our drinks. As we’re standing up to leave douchebag is walking around to everyone shouting, “I put my neck on the line. None of y’all ever put your neck on the line like that. That’s how I live my life. I’m a man of my word, and when it comes down to it, I put my neck on the line for my boys.” He was quite proud of getting choked out. I hope our laughter didn’t hurt his feelings.

We stepped back into the drizzling rain, and walked back to the van. Douchebag and Gollum followed us the whole way back, arms draped around one another’s shoulders, shouting nonsense into the night air. Fucking weirdos, I have never seen dude groupies in my life. Actually, I had never even heard of this phenomenon. We may make fun of females for their desperate need of validation from Tucker, but these guys were just as guilty, if not more.

Before I started the van, I noticed a parking ticket on the wiper. For Fucksakes! I had paid for parking, but moved the van across the street to load the equipment. Some cocksucker, beady-eyed metermaid decided to write me a ticket. When we get back to the hotel, I told Jeff and Nils about the ticket. They gave me shit for a few minutes, when Tucker’s other buddy mentioned he had left his credit card at the bar. He called to confirm, and the bartender said he had the credit card, and the cellphone of the girl we were with (female Tucker Max – who was now in Tucker’s hotel room). Jeff was working out the logistics of picking up the credit card in the morning when I said, “To make up for the parking ticket, I’ll go pick up the credit card and phone right now.”

“That would more than make up for it, ” Jeff said. And moments later I was barreling down the Portland roads heading back to the bar. It was passed midnight so traffic was non-existent. I played over the scenario of coming back with a speeding ticket, and how impressed they would all be with me then, but fuck it, I also wanted to get some sleep before the drive to Seattle the next morning.  I arrived at the bar, and ran inside. The bartender recognized me from earlier.

“Hey, here for the creditcard and cellphone?”

“Yeah.”

“I just closed the tab and didn’t charge any tip on top of it or anything. I also found this bag with t-shirts inside.”

“That’s great, man. Thanks I appreciate it.” I said, as I dug into my pocket to toss him a couple of bucks.

“By the way, that guy that was sitting at the bar is no longer welcome here. And you can tell the girl she is also no longer allowed on the premises. We have her name from her credit card.”

“Why aren’t they allowed?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t have customers fingering other customers right at the bar. The girl had her legs up on top of the bar and that guy was practically fisting her in her chair. That’s when I asked them to leave.”

I had no idea that’s why we had left so abruptedly. Later on Nils joked to Tucker that the girl’s feet didn’t touch the bar floor after she walked in. Tucker snapped back, “what about when she walked out, dumbass.”

I laughed at the bartender, and said “Do you know who that guy was?”

“Well, apparently he wrote a book, but I haven’t read it.”

“Read the book. It’ll make more sense.” I headed out into the rain without tipping him on account of him being humorless. Perhaps I was still bitter from the Powell’s incident.

Back at the hotel, we cracked a few beers in the lobby and then went to bed. Charlie and I were in our hotel room, checking email before lights out. Tucker’s room was across the hall. Somehow the female Tucker Max had ended up locked outside of his room. There were some mild hysterics, I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or crying.

“We did it Charlie,” I said. “One down, thirty-something more to go.”

Charlie nodded. It’s funny. I met Charlie in LA for the first time in March for the Beer in Hell distributor’s screening. The guy is a genius. He’s been mentored by Seth Godin. He’s already written the most twittered ebook ever, and he’s only 23. On top of all that, he’s an extremely nice guy. There’s nothing bad to say about Charlie Hoehn, except that maybe he makes 28 year olds (ie. me) look like morons when standing next to him. After meeting him in LA, I dropped him a line and said “it was good to meet you. I’m sure our paths will cross again.” Who knew it would be so soon, and under these circumstances.

Outside I can hear shouts of “Oh my god, he’s naked.” Bill Dawes had heard the commotion outside. He opened the door without a stitch of clothes on, another girl laying inside his room, looked at the female Tucker Max, and uttered one simple word, “threesome?”

I turned out the light and rolled over to fall asleep. We had an early wake up call to head out to Seattle. I thought about the day’s event which seemed like an entire lifetime. As the commotion in the hall began to die down, I was torn. On one hand, I could never have predicted the first screening would include Tucker getting us kicked out of a bar for fingering a chick, and Jeff choking a dude out. Yet, on the other hand, what the hell did I expect? I signed up for this tour knowing what I was getting into.  By all accounts the first screening had been awesome.

We made a lot people happy. We busted our ass on the business side, and managed to fit in some fun too. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Tucker, Nils, Jeff and Corman have worked day and night for years getting this thing to where it is now. Sure, I’ve volunteered a ton of hours with Rudius, but in the larger picture that isn’t even a drop in the bucket. I’m so excited to see all the hardwork manifested through the fan’s faces. And the best part was that Portland was only a warm up to the utter insanity that would come in Seattle.